Sun, 16 Dec 2018 13:06:53 -0800WeeblyWed, 05 Dec 2018 14:00:00 GMThttp://www.nanpokerwinski.com/blog/my-most-fill-in-the-blank-books-of-2018 Around this time last year, inspired by year-end "Best of . . . " lists, I compiled my own list of standout books I'd read during the past twelve months. I didn't rank my books—on that point I have to agree with author Neil Gaiman, who has compared picking five favorite books to "picking the five body parts you'd most like not to lose."

​​Instead, I listed ten books I found memorable for any number of reasons: the writing was exceptional, the story was engrossing, the tale was told in an unusual way, or the book just stayed with me for reasons I couldn't explain. That's what I'm doing again this year. A couple of the books on this year's list were written by friends, but that's not why I'm including them. They're on this list of books I want to tell you about because that's where they deserve to be.

​Last year I limited my top-whatever list to ten books. This year I'm being more generous and giving you a baker's dozen. About half were published in the past year; the rest have publication dates ranging from 1960 to 2017. I didn't set out to include particular themes, but as I look at the choices on my list, I see that several deal with pivotal periods in history, people making a life in unusual situations, and the challenges of overcoming adversity and finding a place in the world.

​Just as I wrote last year, I'm not really sure what to call this list. My Most Want-to-Tell-You-About-Them Books of 2018? Or simply A Bunch of Books I Read This Year and Actually Remember Something About?

​Whatever you want to call it, here it is:

A Baker's Dozen Something-or-Other Books I Read in 2018(in the order in which I read them)

​Walden on Wheels: On the Open Road from Debt to Freedom by Ken Ilgunas. Burdened by crushing student debt and inspired by Henry David Thoreau, Ilgunas took off to Alaska, where he scraped together enough money from odd jobs—cook, tour guide, and the like—to repay his loans. Finally debt-free and determined to stay that way, he enrolled in graduate school and bought a used Econoline van that became his mobile dorm room for the next two years. What began as an experiment in frugality became much more: an educational experience in its own right.

​The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown. You might think the title and subtitle say it all: American boys, boat, epic quest, 1936, Berlin, Olympics. You pretty much know how it's going to turn out, right? But how it turns out is not the whole story. The beauty is in the details of this tale about a ragtag team of working class kids from the Pacific Northwest who learned—literally—to pull together, challenging elite rowing teams from the East Coast and Great Britain and ultimately defeating Hitler's vaunted rowers in the Olympics. Like a good novel, this saga portrays characters in ways that make you really care how things turn out for them. And just as I couldn't have imagined—until I read Barbarian Days last year—being engrossed in descriptions of one surfing wave after another, I could not have imagined—until I read Boys in the Boat this year—getting so wrapped up in descriptions of boat races. Yet I found myself riveted until the last page.

​Monsoon Mansion: A Memoir by Cinelle Barnes. One reviewer described this book as a "fairy tale turned survival story," and that's an apt characterization. Barnes's childhood world of opulence and privilege in the Philippines is shattered when a monsoon hits with destructive force, her father leaves, and her mother takes up with a shady character. Still a child, Barnes is forced to fend for herself, navigating not only complex relationships with flawed people, but also such practicalities as finding fresh water. Hers is an inspiring story of resilience.

​Never Stop Walking by Christina Rickardsson. This book is also a story of resilience and adaptability, but it's almost a mirror image of Monsoon Mansion. Rickardsson, née Christiana Mara Coelho, was born into abject poverty in Brazil and lived with her loving mother in forest caves for the first seven years of her life. Her mother did the best she could, but eventually Christiana ended up in an orphanage. Adopted by a Swedish couple and taken home to Sweden, she was swept into a life that could not have been more different from her earlier years. The story of how Christiana/Christina adapted and came to terms with her dual identities is both heart-rending and heartening.

​Listening to the Bees by Mark L Winston and Renée Sarojini Saklikar. I am truly blessed to have so many talented friends who find the most interesting outlets for their creativity. My bee buddy Mark Winston just keeps amazing me with his ideas and output. You may remember Mark from his guest post on collaboration, "Everything I Know I Learned From Hermit Crabs."Listening to the Bees is the delightful fruit of one of his collaborations. Merging Mark's scientific knowledge with Renée's poetry, the book explores the challenges to bees in the modern world—and to humans living in complex societies. That's all I'm going to say about this book right now, because I've promised to devote a more space to it in a future blog post. Stay tuned.

​Personal History by Katharine Graham. Not long after seeing the film "The Post," which dramatizes The Washington Post's struggle to publish the Pentagon Papers, I was browsing at Flying Bear Books and saw a stack of copies of this autobiography by Katherine Graham. Graham (played by Meryl Streep in the movie) was at the helm of the Post during both the Pentagon Papers and Watergate exposés. I snapped up the book and devoured it, fascinated not only by Graham's accounts of these two infamous periods of history and their relevance to current times, but also by the insider's view of a bygone era of journalism and the story of Graham's own evolution from awkward child to overshadowed wife to confident and competent businesswoman.

​Grit, Noise, and Revolution: The Birth of Detroit Rock 'n' Roll by David A. Carson. I didn't live in Detroit in the 1960s and 1970s, but the city and its music were certainly on my radar and in my record collection, even when I was more than six-thousand miles away in the South Pacific. Carson's chronicle of Detroit's music scene and its ties to the culture and politics of the time makes for an engrossing read—especially fun for me because when I finally did move to Detroit in the early 1980s, I came to know some of the people who are mentioned in the book. Though I knew a bit about their roles in the music and political scenes of those earlier times, Carson's comprehensive account filled in the blanks.

​The Chicken Who Saved Us: The Remarkable Story of Andrew and Frightful by Kristin Jarvis Adams. I learned about this book when I attended the Pacific Northwest Writers Association conference in Seattle a few months ago, where The Chicken Who Saved Us won the Nancy Pearl Book Award for memoir. I would have bought it and read it for that reason alone, but the cover and the story behind it also drew me in. In this memoir, Adams relates how her son Andrew, who has autism, formed a close bond with a pet chicken named Frightful, and how Andrew's conversations with Frightful ultimately saved the boy's life.

​Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs by Beth Ann Fennelly. In this age of fractured attention and information overload, it's sometimes hard to commit to reading a book of four hundred pages or more. Yet that's not the reason I find myself increasingly attracted to extremely short pieces of fiction and nonfiction. I delight in the authors' skill in telling a complete story in very few words, and I've started playing around with flash nonfiction myself. In this collection, Fennelly celebrates childhood memories, cultural observations, glimpses into domestic life, and other moments that make life rich.

​The President is Missing by Bill Clinton and James Patterson. Yes, I know I just extolled the virtues of short works, but there's also a place for mega-books like this 528-page political thriller. Mysteries and thrillers are not my usual fare. However, the idea of a former president collaborating on novel intrigued me. Whatever you think of Bill Clinton—and I realize there's quite a range of opinion—it's fascinating to read details that only a president would know, and to get a glimpse into how a leader's mind works in a crisis.

​An Imperfect Rapture by Kelly J. Beard. I met this author when we both attended a master class at the Tucson Festival of Books, and when I learned that her memoir was headed for publication after winning the Zone 3 Press Creative Nonfiction Book Award, I could hardly wait to read it. Kelly has kindly agreed to an interview for an upcoming blog post, so I won't go into detail about the book here, except to say that the writing is exquisite, and the story of finding her way in the world after growing up poor, within the strictures of fundamentalist religion, is remarkable. Stay tuned for more.

​Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. Oh, man. This book sounded so far out when I read reviews of it, I just couldn't imagine getting into it. I know, George Saunders is no slouch, and the book was acclaimed by The Washington Post, USA Today, Time, and The New York Times. But come on, a bunch of ghosts—who don't know they're ghosts—gossiping, griping, and skim-walking around a graveyard where they're caught in a sort of purgatory and trying to help Abraham Lincoln's recently dead son Willie escape such a fate? Really? All I can say is, I was hooked from the first page. The fact that I loved the book so much is a reminder that it pays to step out of my literary comfort zone (which for me would be reading yet another Anne Tyler novel—see list below) and take a chance on something completely different.

​The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel. In 1986, a young man named Christopher Knight disappeared into the Maine woods—on purpose—and lived alone there for twenty-seven years. Not exactly self-sufficient, Knight broke into nearby cottages for food and other necessities (including lots and lots of batteries), and though locals knew he was around, he and his secluded encampment remained out of sight for all those years. Journalist Finkel pieced together the story from interviews with Knight after he was found and arrested for the thefts. The story of how Knight survived, and the difficulties he faced in trying to readjust to the life that most of us consider normal, is revealing.

​Now it's your turn. Tell me about the books you read this year.

Other books I read this year (all good, even if I didn't list them above):

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett

Coming to My Senses by Alice Waters

What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton

The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler

Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler

Survival Lessons by Alice Hoffman

A Patchwork Planet by Anne Tyler

Crossing Over by Ruth Irene Garrett

Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

Love & Vodka by R.J. Fox

Awaiting Identification by R.J. Fox

A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures by Ben Bradlee

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett

Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout

]]>Wed, 21 Nov 2018 13:00:00 GMThttp://www.nanpokerwinski.com/blog/take-a-letter​When was the last time you wrote a letter? Not an email, not a text, but an honest-to-goodness, pen-on-paper missive of a full page or more, folded, sealed, stamped, and placed in an actual—not virtual—mailbox. When, for that matter, was the last time you received a letter?Letters: an endangered species?

​​That old-fashioned mode of communication seems to be a vanishing species these days. The average American household receives only ten pieces of personal mail per year (not counting holiday cards and invitations), according to a New York Times article by Susan Shain.

​That's a pity. Letters have worth far beyond the paper they're written on, offering intimate musings and glimpses of everyday life that can't be found in brief dispatches or even impassioned Facebook posts.

Letters allow for fuller expression of ideas and emotions

​"A letter is, after all, a piece of writing in which we give ourselves the space to reflect—to distill our emotions and reactions, to choose the things that are important and flesh them out in detail," writes Cristen Hemingway Jaynes in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers magazine. "Without the more intimate form of writing letters, I drift apart from those who are not in my daily life."

​Reflecting on her communications with one friend who still writes letters but never sends emails, Jaynes observes, "I know more about her thoughts and her relationship with the world—how she is actually doing—than I do about most of my other friends."

Laurel saved the letters that kept us connected after she moved from Northern California to Seattle

​​I thought about that kind of connection recently, when my friend Laurel gave me a packet of letters I'd written to her in the 1970s and '80s. Reading through them, I found verbal snapshots of that period of my life: vivid descriptions of my friends, amusing anecdotes about everyday incidents, accounts of the books I was reading, ramblings on romances, ruminations on my college and grad school anxieties.

The prof I was trying to impress

​For instance: "I'm feeling very anxious about my entomology project and I want to make sure I have something done before Dr. Hurley gets back. I'm trying to get my equipment together this week so I can start the project next week. So far my equipment is a cake pan with the bottom cut out of it and a sieve. I have fears that the whole project is going to be about that sophisticated. I'm very nervous about it. I will enclose some of my bitten off fingernails if I remember."

Working on my entomology field project (after progressing beyond the cake-pan stage)

Zeke, the bird-chatterer

​Segues were seemingly unnecessary. I followed a discussion of travel plans with this news flash about my cat: "Ooooh, the most creepy thing just happened. Zeke has been sitting next to me on the couch, watching the birds outside and chattering his teeth at them. Then he lay down and went to sleep and chattered his teeth in his sleep. I CAN'T STAND IT!!!"

​Reading the Laurel letters inspired me to haul out a box of letters that friends and family members had written to me over the years. Just the act of taking the letters out of the box gave me a deeper satisfaction than I've ever gotten from an email popping into my inbox. Seeing my brother's artsy, backhand cursive trailing across an envelope; recognizing a friend's old return address, noticing the stamp she selected, the kind of paper she wrote on, all felt like little homecomings. And the contents of those letters took me to times, places, and crannies of my friends' hearts and souls I couldn't have visited—and revisited—any other way.

Darwin wrote to me on a bar napkin at the end of this adventure

​Among those treasures was a note written on a Buckaroo Club napkin by my friend Darwin in 1981, shortly after he'd completed a 300-mile kayaking odyssey on the Yukon, Porcupine, Sheenjek, and Kongakut rivers, culminating at the Beaufort Sea.

​"Though very maladjusted and in a state totally unfit for normal upright society except for that of Alaska, which I hate the city part of, I'm alive and back in Anchorage," he wrote. He went on to recount seeing hundreds of caribou, five grizzlies, two moose, and one gyrfalcon; tipping over twice, but righting himself before swamping his kayak; and sharing bowhead whale meat and blubber with local indigenous people on Barter Island.

Darwin, before his return to civilization

​Even accounts of my correspondents' less adventurous experiences were a treat to read. My friend Barry's dispatch from college in 1969 was just as keenly observed:

Barry's communiques from college could make even a boring lecture entertaining

​​"Right here you have a prime example of a Communications 301 class," he wrote. "Notice the yawns and the chins propped drowsily on hands. Notice the blank sheets of paper without any notes. Notice the guest speaker getting shook. Notice chair #213 back there writing a letter to some girl in Oklahoma."

In letters, Wendy and I commiserated over financial and fashion dilemmas

​Old letters preserve daily details that now seem quaint. Writing in 1971 about her employment woes, my friend Wendy lamented "I really want to get out of the $1.65/hr range. It's a drag." In the same letter, she included sketches of a denim coat and paisley dress she'd managed to buy on those skimpy wages, and added, "I've ordered rain boots from Sears (pg. 555, Fall-Winter book, item 5, on sale for $8.94 in one of their sale books)."

​Over the years I've sometimes chided myself for holding onto mementos like these old letters. But a single snowy afternoon spent reading them—even if that happens only once a decade—is more than worth the closet space my box of letters occupies. I'm reminded of how long my friendships have endured and how they've sustained me.

​Letters enhance connection and contentment, to be sure, but they're also good for creativity.

Letters are a way to exercise creative muscles

"When I write longhand each pass of the ink on to paper is a physical creation. And as with sculpture, textiles, painting, and furniture, it contains remnants of myself," notes Jaynes, whose great-grandfather Ernest Hemingway was also an inveterate letter writer. "The exercise of writing, whether it be in the form of a letter or a story, is all good practice. As my great-grandfather demonstrated in his colorful letters to friends, there can be just as much creativity in letter writing as in any other form. Similar to freewriting exercises, writing a letter loosens the knots in neural pathways, leading to subjects and characters lying just below the surface."

​I know it did for me. I learned to write largely by crafting letters to everyone from grandparents to pen pals with whom I connected through a kids' magazine.

Keep those cards and letters coming

​After all I've said in praise of letters, you probably think I'm going to end this post with a pledge to write more of them. I could, but I know it would be a hollow promise. Truth is, I've never been that great a correspondent, even when letters were my main form of communication. I wrote tons of them, but I always seemed to have a stack of unanswered ones nagging at me (kind of like my email inbox these days).

​So rather than make a promise I'm not likely to keep, I will resolve to keep writing an occasional letter, and I'll encourage you to do the same.

​After all, as Hemingway once wrote to F. Scott Fitzgerald, "it's such a swell way to keep from working and yet feel you've done something."

Need more inspiration? Check out Letters of Note, a website that "offers an intimate window into history and the characters who shaped it."

Or write a letter to a stranger who could use an encouraging word. Find stories of deserving people, along with where to send letters, at More Love Letters.

]]>Wed, 07 Nov 2018 14:00:00 GMThttp://www.nanpokerwinski.com/blog/laughing-all-the-way​Feeling a little (or a lot) weighed down lately? I know I have been. With dreadful things happening around the world, and many friends and family members facing difficult challenges, it's sometimes hard to find reasons to smile.

​Yet even in rough times, a little levity can help us cope. In that spirit, I'm taking a look back at some of the funny and light-hearted things we've come across in our recent travels.

​One way I amuse myself on long road trips is by collecting funny names of roads, businesses, and other points of interest. I don't do this in any organized way—I just scribble them down in whatever notebook I have at hand. It's a treat to come across those notations later, when I'm thumbing through the pages, looking for the name of a book someone mentioned or the phone number of a tradesman I saw on a street-corner sign, or whatever else I've stowed in the same notebook.

​On our latest trip out west, we chuckled at a highway exit sign for Bad Route Road, and then laughed harder when we saw the next sign advising trucks to exit there. On the same stretch of Montana highway, we encountered Whoop-Up Creek Road. I guess if you make it through the Bad Route, you've got something to whoop about.

​​Some place names just make you wonder how they came by those monikers. Take Tongue River, for instance. Or Fourth of July Creek. I Googled that one while working on this piece and didn't find out the origins of the name, but I did discover author Smith Henderson's 2014 novel by the same name. Looks like another book worth jotting down in that little notebook and adding to my to-read list.

​In Seattle, our friends Laurel and Darwin took us on a day trip to Kitsap Peninsula, which included a visit to a finger of land known as Point No Point. According to a source cited in Wikipedia, explorer Charles Wilkes gave the place its name because "it appears much less of a promontory at close range than it does from a distance." I don’t know about that, as I didn't view it from a distance (I didn't see the point—ha, ha), but I will say that there is a point to visiting Point No Point: seeing the oldest lighthouse on Puget Sound and enjoying the driftwood sculptures and furnishings that decorate the grounds.

Point No Point Lighthouse

This driftwood horse is another point of interest at Point No Point

As is this lovely garden bench

Hats off to this creative landmark

​On our drive back to Michigan, we saw other sights that made us smile.

​In Kellogg, Idaho, there's a circular building topped with an oversized miner's helmet and lantern. Built in 1939, it was originally a roadside diner where workers from nearby lead and silver mines stopped for Coneys and beers. After a stint as a 1950s drive-in restaurant, it closed in 1963, but reopened in 1991 as a realty office, which is what it remains.

Construction barrel creation

​

​Even highway rest stops can serve up some smiles. Weary of construction delays toward the end of our travels last spring, we came across this jaunty fellow in one rest area.

​

​And on our most recent trip, we encountered this frighteningly funny chap at a pit stop. Two truck drivers were preparing to station the skeleton at the controls of a piece of equipment they were transporting. They told me they planned to put a sign on Mr. Bones's back reading "I WAS TEXTING."

The lengths people will go to, just to relieve highway monotony!

​More merriment came from the names of businesses we passed along the way: Garden of Read'n bookstore in Missoula and Animal House Veterinary Hospital in Forsyth, Montana. Then there was the billboard that warranted a double take, with its ad for the Rock Creek Testicle Festival.

​You know I had to look that one up! Turns out it's an annual event famous for dishing up the local delicacy known as Rocky Mountain oysters—breaded and deep-fried cattle testicles—and sponsoring such contests as the Undie 500 tricycle race. I should say it was an annual event, as the Testy Fest (motto: "Have a ball") was discontinued this year, following a series of incidents, including fatal crashes caused by festival-goers, in previous years.

​The owner of the lodge that hosted the rowdy event for 35 years said attendance—which once numbered more than 10,000 people—also had been dropping, due at least in part to social media. Apparently not all attendees cared to have footage of their festival antics posted on Facebook.

​Though I'm a big fan of festivals (read more about that here), I think this is one I'm not sorry to have missed. At this stage in life, I'm content to get my amusement from road signs and sights. And newspaper headlines, which are sometimes downright funny, but more often ironic in their placement.

​One day, for instance, the front pages of Montana Standard and Great Falls Tribune were crowded with news of corruption and strife—a sheriff charged with felonies, nastiness between two state senate candidates—but anchored with a story bearing this headline: "Labyrinths across state bring peace, meditation."

​Let's hope so.

What has tickled your funny bone lately? ​

]]>Wed, 31 Oct 2018 13:00:00 GMThttp://www.nanpokerwinski.com/blog/last-wednesday-wisdom-for-october-2018From the beginning, I have tried to keep HeartWood politically neutral, partly as a haven from all the discord around us, and partly because plenty of other outlets exist for expressing my political views, if I wish to do so.

I'm not about to change course here, but I do want to remind readers that we have an important midterm election coming up next week. I encourage you to vote!

In case you need more encouragement, here are some other people's thoughts on voting and democracy.

Voting is like alchemy—taking an abstract value and breathing life into it. Voting is the expression of our commitment to ourselves, one another, this country and this world.-- Sharon Salzberg

Every election is determined by the people who show up.-- Larry Sabato

​Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.-- Abraham Lincoln

​Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

​Voting is a civic sacrament—the highest responsibility we have as Americans.-- Christine Pelosi

​As I think of it, democracy isn't like a Sunday suit to be brought out and worn only for parades. It's the kind of a life a decent man leads, it's something to live for and to die for.-- Dalton Trumbo

​Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting.-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

​Democracy is the only system capable of reflecting the humanist premise of equilibrium or balance. The key to its secret is the involvement of the citizen.-- John Ralston Saul

​Not voting is disrespecting the best of what this nation stands for.-- Thomas Hauser

​Deliberation and debate is the way you stir the soul of our democracy.-- Jesse Jackson

Voting is the foundational act that breathes life into the principle of the consent of the governed.-- DeForest Soaries

​​I arrived early to nab a good seat for the workshop titled "Discovering Your Story: The Joy of Mindful Writing." On the hour, the instructor, Peter Gibb, walked to the podium. Around the room, people stashed their cell phones, arranged their pens, opened laptops and notebooks.

​Gibb looked out at the audience, looked down at the podium. Did not speak. He moved his cell phone a fraction of an inch, shuffled some other things in front of him. Remained silent.

People shifted in their chairs, rearranged their pens, shot each other quizzical glances. My mind pinged: Has he forgotten what he wants to say? Is this part of the workshop? It is, after all, about mindful writing. Am I supposed to relax and try to be mindful? What the heck is he waiting for?

One lo-o-o-ong minute (Photo: Maxpixel)

​​Finally, our speaker spoke: "We have now been in session for one minute."

​One minute. Huh. One minute of unfilled time felt like an eternity.

​That was the first lesson in a class that offered a fresh and inspiring take on writing. Immediately following that interminable minute, Gibb challenged us to spend a few more minutes writing about what happened during that miniscule span of time. "It might seem like nothing happened, but actually a lot was going on," he said.

Who knows what might turn up in a mindful minute (Stock photo)

​That there was, judging from the writing people shared after the exercise One person wrote about a fly walking across the table where she sat; another writer detailed his observations of Gibb and the room. From those and other examples, Gibb launched into a discussion of the three typical components of stories, especially memoir: the external story (facts), the internal story (thoughts and feelings), and the personal meaning (what you make of the experience).

​The richest personal stories, he maintains, include all three levels, and all three can benefit from a mindful approach.

​"Most of us think what we need to learn is craft, and that's important, but mindful writing has less to do with craft than with awareness and curiosity," Gibb said. "Being aware and curious opens you up to a world that is truly mind-boggling."

​My mind was boggled, all right, and not only by Gibb's presentation, one of eight sessions I attended at the annual Pacific Northwest Writers' Association (PNWA) conference in Seattle last month. The content ranged from practical advice on the business of writing ("Legal Issues for Writers" and "Build a Writer Platform in 12 Months"), to the finer points of craft ("The Art of the Personal Essay" and "How to Create an Unforgettable Character").

​There were panel discussions in which agents and editors gave overviews of the kinds of projects they're acquiring and how best to pitch a project to them. And there were pitch panels (AKA pitch slams)—sort of like speed dating for aspiring authors. At these sessions, a writer has four minutes in which to pitch and connect with an agent or editor. Then a bell rings and the writer must give up his or her seat to the next person waiting in line, and head off to pitch to someone else. All in a noisy, open space. Sounds crazy, but once you get the hang of it, it's kind of fun. Well, a stressful kind of fun.

This is what a pitch panel looks like. This one's from a different conference, but the setup's much the same as at PNWA. (Photo: Anthony Bonato)

Christopher Vogler

​​Another noteworthy session was a four-hour master class with Christopher Vogler, author of The Writer's Journey. Vogler's approach to storytelling draws from psychology, mythology, physiology, and other sources not typically associated with writing.

Artist's representation of chakras.

His talk wrapped up with a discussion of chakras, focal points within the body used in a number of ancient meditation practices. Chakras are thought to respond to sound, colors, and vibrations, and can also serve as a guide in writing, Vogler asserts. "Think about what chakras you're trying to awaken in readers," he advised. "Also, what chakra is your main character working from?"

​I don't know about my readers and characters, but I sensed my chakras were all awake and humming throughout the conference, where there was as much going on outside of the sessions as within them, and PNWA board members, staffers, and volunteers went out of their way to show their support for writers.

FINALIST! (And winner-to-be) (Photo: Ray Pokerwinski)

​Having never attended that conference before and having moved away from the Pacific Northwest more than forty years ago, I showed up at the SeaTac Doubletree knowing no other attendees. The folks at the registration table made me feel like part of the gang—even a special part of the gang, by congratulating me on being a finalist in the literary awards contest and making sure I attached my green-and-gold FINALIST ribbon to my name badge. All weekend long, in fact, finalists and winners got VIP treatment, with reserved tables at the awards banquet for all finalists and an after party with agents and editors for the first, second and third-place winners in each category (not to mention the elegant certificates and substantial cash awards).

I was thrilled to win first place in the memoir/nonfiction category, but honestly, it seemed to me everyone was a winner at this conference, thanks to PNWA's thoughtful touches.

At one station in the registration area, attendees could decorate their badges with colorful stickers corresponding to their writing specialties: a heart for romance, for instance, a pen nib for poetry, a sleuth's magnifying glass for mystery. These visual cues helped writers identify others in their genre and were great conversation starters ("Oh, I see you write historical fiction. What period do you write about, and what kind of historical figures intrigue you?)

​At a noontime gathering on the first day for first-time conference attendees, PNWA folks offered tips on choosing workshops and panels to attend, connecting with fellow writers, and developing and delivering a pitch. And throughout the weekend, speakers, agents, editors, and PNWA representatives mingled with writers in the hallways and café, willing to chat informally and answer questions.

​I came away from PNWA with plenty to think about and process. As I looked back at notes from the conference after our return home, I started thinking about all the other writers' conferences, workshops, and retreats I've attended over the years. Curious, I tallied them up and came up with nearly thirty, stretched out over roughly same number of years, from a science writers' workshop on molecular medicine at the University of Michigan to a multimedia storytelling conference at Harvard, to a cozy memoir-writing workshop held in the instructor's living room with blazing fireplace and breaks for tea and homemade muffins.

A Rally of Writers in Lansing, Michigan, one of about thirty writing conferences, workshops, and retreats I've attended over the years. (Photo: Nan Pokerwinski)

A quiet moment at Bear River Writers' Conference in 2005 (Photo: Cyan James)

An early morning session in Jerry Denis's nature writing workshop at Bear River in 2004 (Photo: Nan Pokerwinski)

​As I looked over the list of writing events, some stood out as exceptional learning experiences, others were notable for the new writing friends I made, the new places I explored, and the insights and inspiration I came away with. There were multi-day conferences with hundreds of attendees jamming the halls and intimate retreats with a handful of writers gathered in someone's home. Some offered opportunities to read my work to an audience or share it in a workshop and have it critiqued. Others were more about sitting back and absorbing information.

​Not one seemed like a waste of time and money.

Writing friends gathered for a weekend retreat at one of writer's riverside home. (Photo: Nan Pokerwinski)

Small retreats offer a mix of solitary and social time (Photo: Nan Pokerwinski)

Getting ready to read my work at Bear River (Photo: Cyan James)

A workshop on writing and drawing at Interlochen Center for the Arts in northern Michigan

​I have wondered if there ever comes a time in a writer's life when conferences and workshops no longer seem worthwhile. I think I found the answer to that question in the woman who sat next to me at the PNWA editor and agent forums. I'd noticed her earlier, buzzing around the room, greeting old friends and garnering hugs. As we visited before the program began, she told me she had been a finalist a few years earlier and now planned to pitch her memoir, in hopes of securing an agent or publisher.

​And oh, by the way, she was 97.

]]>Wed, 03 Oct 2018 13:00:00 GMThttp://www.nanpokerwinski.com/blog/some-enchanted-morning​If you ever find yourself traveling through North Dakota on I-94, wishing for relief from the tedium of driving and the monotony of the plains, just take Exit 72 for a delightful detour through one man's imagination.

​Known as the Enchanted Highway, the 32-mile stretch of two-lane county road from Gladstone to Regent showcases a collection of colossal creations by metal sculptor and retired teacher Gary Greff. Gargantuan grasshoppers, humongous fish, gigantic pheasants, the world's largest tin family—you'll find all of these and more if you venture off the interstate.

Gary Greff's gargantuan grasshoppers

A closer look at a mega-hopper

​Greff dreamed up the Enchanted Highway nearly three decades ago in an attempt to revitalize his hometown of Regent, then a town of around 200 people. He'd never studied art and didn't know how to weld, but that didn't stop him. Using scrap metal, cast-off oil drums and recycled pipes, Greff just figured things out as he went along, sculpture by sculpture.

A young family checks out Greff's "Deer Crossing" sculpture

"​He envisioned ten mega-sculptures, each with parking lot, picnic area and playground equipment, spaced every few miles along the road. So far, he has completed six on the Gladstone-to-Regent road, plus an additional sculpture, "Geese in Flight," on a ridge overlooking I-94 at the Gladstone exit.

"Geese in Flight" overlooks I-94 and serves as a gateway to the Enchanted Highway

​Simply funneling travelers into Regent wasn't enough for Greff, though. He wanted to keep them there long enough to eat, drink, sleep, shop, and hang out a while. So he opened a gift shop, and when the town's school—which Greff had attended as a kid—closed, he and his brother converted the building into a hotel.

"Pheasants on the Prairie," a la Greff

​But not just an ordinary hotel. No, the brothers Greff wanted a hostelry in keeping with the enchantment theme. So, once again with more inspiration than experience, they turned the school into the Enchanted Castle, a 23-room hotel with waterfall walls, suits of armor, and other medieval touches. The inn even has a bar and a restaurant fittingly named Excalibur Steakhouse.

One big bird!

Though the hotel, bar, and restaurants have garnered glowing reviews, they haven't yet turned things around for Regent. The population has dwindled to around 170. Yet Greff is undaunted. Ever the optimist, he's working on two new sculptures to grace the hotel grounds and attract more visitors, he told the Dickinson (North Dakota) Press: a 35-foot-tall, sword-wielding knight and a 40-foot tall dragon that will breathe fire every hour.

"Fisherman's Dream" is arguably the most ambitious of Greff's sculptures to date, but he's still making BIG plans for imaginative works

​Regular readers of HeartWood know I can never pass up roadside oddities, especially the oversized variety. My patient husband and traveling companion, Ray, knows it, too, and never objects my quests for the quirky. So when I read about the Enchanted Highway in a North Dakota tourism magazine and realized it was right on the route of our recent road trip to Seattle, I declared it a must-see. On the way out to Seattle, we had only enough time to stop at "Geese in Flight," which is currently closed to visitors, but can be viewed from the highway exit. On the way back, however, we spent an entire morning visiting the rest of the sculptures.

"Tin Family"

Many of the sculptures include extra touches, like these flying-goose-topped posts along the driveway leading to "Geese in Flight"

​I was— of course—enchanted! The sculptures were even more immense and intricate than they appear in photos. It was clear, though, that some could benefit from an infusion of cash to maintain or restore them to their original conditions.

​Greff's project is largely self-funded, and he does all the upkeep, including cutting the grass. He'd hoped gift shop proceeds would cover costs, but so far they haven't, he told the Dickinson Press. Neither, apparently, have the donation stations at the sculpture sites.

Some of the works could use a little TLC, but that takes money

​I only hope some kind of magic materializes to provide Greff with the means to continue and care for his work. It's a testament to the vision and perseverance of one big-time dreamer and an inspiration to all who dare to aim high.

Here's to big dreamers!

​As Greff summed it up in an article on a North Dakota tourism website, "You've got a dream. Live that dream. Don't hesitate. If I can do it, a person who didn't know how to weld and didn't have an art class, if I can go out and build 110-foot metal sculptures, I think you can do whatever you put your mind to."

​My bucket list's got a hole in it. Things that once seemed vitally important to see or do before I die have dribbled away—some replaced by new must-dos, others simply discarded because my interests and circumstances changed.​

I came to this realization after unearthing some of my old lists. It was enlightening to see which things on those lists I had ended up doing, which things I'd lost interest in along the way, which things just didn't happen and probably never will, and which ones still call to me.

For example:My "101 Things I Want to Do Before I Die" list, dated October 20, 2002, includes item number 75: "Have a pet donkey (maybe)."

I once dreamed of having a donkey pal (Photo: Nan Pokerwinski)

​A few years earlier, I had become fascinated with donkeys during a long motorcycle trip down south, on which we saw scads of donkeys—miniature and full-sized—in fields and farmyards. I dreamed of having a donkey farm, then scaled that dream back to just one donkey (or two—I'd heard they need companions). By the time I made the 2002 list, though, the parenthetical "maybe" suggests I already harbored doubts about my commitment to caring for a large animal. ​

​By the time I revised my list in March 2006, donkeys had disappeared, replaced by a number of items related to writing, publishing, and attending various writers' conferences.

Playing pedal steel was another aspiration (Stock photo)

​

​One gotta-do item that did carry over onto the 2006 list was "Learn to play steel guitar," a burning desire since my grad school days in Kansas, when I worked off stress by dancing to western swing tunes and came to love the twang of pedal steel.

​But that long-held aspiration had sloshed out of the bucket by 2009, when I again revised and pared down my list. By then, we had bought our Newaygo house and were making plans to move. While the idea of learning a new musical instrument still appealed to me, I wanted to devote more time to outdoor activities, travel, and getting to know our new neighbors and surroundings. I already had one time-consuming, indoor pursuit: writing. That felt like enough.

Michael Parks in "Then Came Bronson"

​Then there's the category of things that just didn’t happen and probably never will. Ever since my youth, when I never missed an episode of "Then Came Bronson," starring Michael Parks as a disillusioned former journalist wandering the West on his Harley-Davidson Sportster, I'd dreamed of riding those same roads on my own motorcycle. I got the motorcycle (several, in fact, over the years), learned to ride, and made shorter trips on my own bike and longer ones on the back of Ray's, navigating so he could focus on the challenges of the road.

On my own bike, on a motorcycle trip around the Mitten (Photo: Ray Pokerwinski)

​But my own westward odyssey never happened, and at some point it became clear to me that it never would. While it's true that ever since I turned fifty, my motto has been, "It's never too late," I've recently come to realize that for some things, it kinda is. The prime time for me to have made such a journey was ten or twenty years ago, when my riding skills, reflexes, and stamina were at their peak (and other drivers on the road were not as distracted as they are these days). I could still do it now, but I wouldn't enjoy it as much as I once would have.

​I'm a little sad that it didn't happen, but when I remind myself of other experiences that did happen (including several meandering trips out West in vehicles other than motorcycles), the sadness dissipates.

Learning to kayak was on my bucket list (Photo: Ray Pokerwinski)

​That brings me to the mind-shift about bucket lists that happened not long after I drew up my last one in 2010. I realized that focusing on things still undone made me feel restless and disheartened at the prospect of time running out before I accomplished them all. So I sat down and made a list of all the things I had done over the years—both things that had been on my bucket list (writing a book, making collages, learning to kayak, hiking sections of the North Country Trail) and things that arose out of unexpected opportunities or spur-of-the-moment whims (joining in a 60-mile fundraising walk, taking a motorhome trip to Alaska, moving to Newaygo).

A motorhome trip to Alaska wasn't on my bucket list, but it was on Ray's, and I'm glad he took me along (Photo: Ray Pokerwinski)

​That list went on for pages, and as I looked it over, I could see that everything I'd listed there had brought me some kind of satisfaction, whether or not it had been on my official bucket list.

​So I scrapped the bucket list and decided to take a different tack. I looked back at the various iterations of the list and tried to identify threads that ran through them. The result was a different kind of list that I titled "The Themes of My Dreams." Among the entries on that list were:

Live a life that incorporates creativity, mindfulness, physical activity, social responsibility, and fun

Explore new places and experience new things

Synthesize my life experiences into something meaningful to leave behind

Develop my talents to the fullest extent

Have a happy marriage and a joyful daily life

Engage with other people in ways that are meaningful and mutually satisfying

​Now, instead of trying to tick off accomplishments, I just try to align activities with those overarching themes, and I feel far more content as a result.

I was surprised to find a similar approach advocated in—of all places—MotorHome magazine. In an article titled Trimming Your Bucket List in the magazine's September 2018 issue, author Mary Zalmanek ends with these suggestions (condensed and paraphrased here):

Start with love, gratitude and forgiveness. Use every opportunity to express and demonstrate love to family and friends.

Add service to others and doing meaningful work. Ask yourself: Have you used your talents and gifts to the best of your ability?

Embrace your passions and adventures.

​Finally, Zalmanek closes with this sage advice: "Today, do what will make you feel like you've lived a full and worthwhile life. That way your bucket will never seem empty."

​In the two-and-a-half years since I started this blog, I've written about dozens of creative people, some here in Newaygo County, others as far away as the U.K. But it struck me recently that I've never written about my favorite creative individual, one who's right here at home: my husband, Ray Pokerwinski.

​Since Ray has a birthday coming up next week, what better time to celebrate his talents?

​One of the first things I appreciated about Ray (after his green eyes and engaging personality) was his imagination and ability to apply it to all sorts of projects. When we first met, twenty-six years ago, he was remodeling a house, transforming a cobbled-together lakeside cottage into a stunning, open-floorplan, contemporary home, complete with boat house and tiered decks. He envisioned the whole thing, then set about gutting the place and putting it back together in an entirely different conformation. (That house, by the way, was the fifth house he had remodeled, all with self-taught skills.)

The original cottage

Ray at work

Changes underway

Finishing up the kitchen backsplash

The final result, from the lake side

The tiered decks were one summer's project

Finished living room . . .

. . . and kitchen

​As time went on, I discovered he was equally adept at re-imagining all sorts of things, including two of my motorcycles. With my input, his skills and artistry, and a little help from a custom painter, Ray turned stock bikes into head-turners.

My last motorcycle, fresh from the dealer . . .

. . . and re-worked by Ray

I guarantee this roadster will look totally different by the time Ray is done with it

​

​Now he's turned his attention to a hot rod, the design of which has been incubating in his brain for a few years. Finally he's found time to start chipping away at the project as time permits.

​Ray's genius for innovation applies to more than making things; he's a whiz at coming up with out-of-the box solutions to all sorts of problems. I can't tell you how many times I've been stuck, unable to figure out how to deal with a complicated schedule or some other seemingly intractable situation (like keeping squirrels out of the bird feeder). When I outline the problem to Ray, he instantly sees a simple fix that I was too mired in details to discern. (So far, he's winning the squirrel battle.)

Squirrel strategizing

Taking on the challenge

Whoa!

Aw, nuts!

​So yeah, his ingenuity makes everyday life more efficient, but it also makes life a whole lot more fun. I never know when I might find a funny face on my lunch plate. Or fashioned out of folded laundry.

Food face

Laundry art

​When we bought an adjacent piece of property with a weathered shed, Ray amused the whole neighborhood by decorating the shed for holidays with mostly Ray-made adornments.

Ray's jack-o-lantern on shed door

The camera box

​​For my birthday a couple of years ago, he gave me a gift card to a local camera store, but instead of just sticking it in a greeting card, he presented it in a camera-shaped, wooden box that he had made.

​​And one Valentine's Day morning, I stumbled into the kitchen to find a wooden heart Ray had fashioned from a piece of the towering oak we'd had to cut down. That's the heart you see in my HeartWood logo. Another year, I found a bouquet of wooden tulips he had made in his workshop.

HeartWood heart

Valentine tulips

​It's been a pleasure, too, to collaborate with him on creative projects, like fairy houses for Camp Newaygo's annual Enchanted Forest event. Ray dreams up the creations; I just help with a few finishing touches. And it's Ray who makes up the fairy stories to accompany each house; then we work together on the wording.

Ray's first fairy house

Fairy house #2

​Seeing how Ray makes creativity a priority emboldens me to do the same. What's more, he actively encourages and celebrates all my creative undertakings, from my memoir to this blog to photography projects and other artistic dabblings.

​It's inspiring, as well, to see that he's still trying new things, with youthful enthusiasm that belies the number of candles on his cake (or pie, as that was his request for the upcoming birthday). His latest venture: hand-turning wooden pens and mechanical pencils for friends, relatives and fundraisers.

Drilling out the pen blank

Turning the pen shaft

One of Ray's latest pen projects

​I could go on and on singing Ray's praises, but I've gotta go now—I have a pie to make.

]]>Wed, 29 Aug 2018 13:00:00 GMThttp://www.nanpokerwinski.com/blog/at-last-some-wednesday-wisdom​Ever since I switched from weekly posts to a twice-a-month posting schedule, I've been depriving you, dear readers, of the end-of-month collections of wisdom that many of you have told me you enjoy. When I noticed that this month has an extra Wednesday, I thought I'd throw in a bonus post with tidbits I've been collecting over the summer.

​Be tender to each other, teach a kid to read, laugh, be more tender than yesterday, repeat, ad infinitum.-- Brian Doyle

​It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end.-- Ursula K. Le Guin

​Recognize yourself in he and she who are not like you and me.-- Carlos Fuentes

​Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste. It's what everything else isn't.-- Theodore Roethke

​In a way, nobody sees a flower, really; it is so small. We haven't time, and to see takes time—like to have a friend takes time.-- Georgia O'Keeffe

​The quest for knowledge can be never-ending, because when you find out one thing, you want to know more. It's the joy of being a human: we're curiosity with arms and legs.-- Sylvia Earle, The Sun magazine, July 2018

​Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.-- Truman Capote

​My theory is that everyone, at one time or another, has been at the fringe of society in some way: an outcast in high school, a stranger in a foreign country, the best at something, the worst at something, the one who's different. Being an outsider is the one thing we all have in common.-- Alice Hoffman

​The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.-- Plutarch

​The most solid advice . . . for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell, and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.-- William Saroyan

​The heart pounds away, day after day, so synced up to our every movement we don't even notice. Yet it sustains us. Soft and vulnerable beneath our breast, it's no wonder this big, red muscle is the universal symbol for loving and feeling. To live is to feel. To love is to survive together. Our tender hearts connect our inner worlds with the lives all around us.-- Claire Ciel Zimmerman, Mindful magazine, June 2017

​[The waves] move across a faint horizon, the rush of love and the surge of grief, the respite of peace and then fear again, the heart that beats and then lies still, the rise and fall and rise and fall of all of it, the incoming and the outgoing, the infinite procession of life. And the ocean wraps the earth, a reminder. The mysteries come forward in waves.-- Susan Casey

By the way, I'll be continuing the twice-a-month posting schedule rather than weekly posts, for a bit longer, posting on the first and third Wednesdays of the month.Here are the dates for the next few months' posts:September 5Septembe 19October 3October 17November 7November 21December 5​December 19

]]>Wed, 15 Aug 2018 13:00:00 GMThttp://www.nanpokerwinski.com/blog/scenes-of-summer-2018​Quick as a darting dragonfly, summer flits past us. Those leisurely days we fantasize about all winter long soon fill up with visitors, summertime projects, and a mad, whirling mix of busy-ness and play. Before we know it, it's the middle of August, and we're trying to cram even more into what's left of the season.

Before rushing off to another activity, though, let's just pause to savor some scenes from this lovely time of year. Sunny fields and shady forests, festivals and fairs, recreation and relaxation, blossoms and berries, creatures great and small -- all the things that make summer special.